Technology, toddlers, and Starfall…

Today we had an interesting shot at trying BabyZ's hands at Starfall.com.

She had been watching Big Sister on the PC for quite some time now, so of course, she was itching to get on the computer and mouse.

So for her very short lesson, I taught her to move the mouse across the screen, place the cursor on a letter, andclick.  Really just three short moves.

1. move mouse
2. control cursor on object
3. click

During the process she learned a few more letters and had fun along the way.

Here is a YouTube video I created to show you what we did (I apologize for the rough footage- I'm using a low quality camera).

Create Video Montages

So you don't know what to do with all those digital pics?
We have that problem in our home...and for school it's a huge deal for us.
Since we love to digitally snap anything in sight and archive what we are doing at the spur of any moment, having a way to archive all those digital pics (besides blogging) would be a real plus.

So, here is a free online tool anyone can use to create video montages of your photos and pics. Simply upload pictures, add music and effects, and voila. You have code to embed in your blog and share with family and friends.

Check out One True Media on creating these videos.

Learning The Planets With VoiceThread

Finally we have put together NyGirl's power point presentation into our VoiceThread account.

I will add, she did this project completely on her own (after a few lessons from me on how to create the Power Point slides).  She also took off on the remaining voice narrations after showing her initially how to do the first one in Voice Thread.  It was a fun project, and I think we'll be doing a good bit more of these kinds of online presentations for our upcoming lessons.

Take a look (and don't forget to press the play button):


Enjoy!

Learning The Solar System With Power Point

NyGirl has really been interested in planets lately. We have a full unit covering the solar system in her Houghton Mifflin science book...but it is very limited when it comes to techie ideas (though the book offers a supplemental website with additional quizzes and games that accompany the unit).

So I decided to create our own unit.  I thought about lapbooking and then scanning in the images to create a slideshow...until i found VoiceThread.  So instead, I ended up creating our own Solar System unit in which NyGirl will create a complete Power Point presentation to upload and narrate via VoiceThread.  In the process, she is getting some typing practice (we use Sense-Lang.org for typing lessons), and a general overview on how to use presentation software and become familiar with computer icons, commands, and tasks.
So far I have taught her how to select slide templates and styles, add slides, add transitions and effects, change fonts, and add clip art.  The easiest part was typing  the information in for the planet Mercury.

This is going to be a fun project, I can already tell.

The thing is, once younger students are introduced to the concepts of productivity and presentation software, they can run with it and leave us in the dust.  I think it's hilarious when some educators scoff at the idea of showing children in the lower elementary years how to use these types of software.  It's perfectly do-able and absolutely equips them with ways to express their ideas and thoughts, making school projects all the more fun for them.

So that's it for now.